ND grapples with gap in housing help
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Organizers working to end homelessness in North Dakota say they’re trying to fill gaps left by program closures that helped to make housing more affordable for residents.
It's been almost a year since the local pandemic Emergency Rental Assistance Program sunsetted.
Andrea Olson, executive director of the Community Action Partnership of North Dakota, said the state has since seen a tenfold reduction in the capacity of its resources, noting at its peak in 2025, the program was serving about 800 households per month.
“Where our program, the North Dakota Homeless Grant Program, can only serve about 80 to 100 households per month. So it’s a staggering scalability. It leaves a gap that we just cannot fill,” Olson said.
Expired federal pandemic-era funds forced the program to end. Olson pointed out since it closed, her organization has received an increase in calls from both urban and rural residents in need of financial assistance. U.S. Census data show more than 11% of North Dakota households live below the federal poverty line.
Olson praised the North Dakota Legislature for investing a record $10 million into the North Dakota Homeless Grant over the biennium but explained the majority of the funds are allocated for emergency shelters across the state. Only a small portion provides direct housing stability support to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
“We know that 37% of renters are cost-burdened. And what we mean by cost burdened is that they’re spending more than 30% of their household income on housing,” Olson reported.
As the state grapples with the affordable housing shortage, Olson stressed North Dakota needs tangible solutions to help, saying it should be approaching the issue as a workforce problem, since it also continues to be an issue for state employers.
“It can be difficult to find the appropriate staffing. So we want to make sure that we don’t lose sight of if people can afford housing in North Dakota, that they would want to work in North Dakota,” Olson said.
Olson added strong collaboration among agencies will be essential in a constrained funding environment and hopes upcoming legislative sessions will produce concrete answers to the affordable housing shortage.